A fellow Seattle artist, Dawn Bustanoby and her website - Play A Pixie.

Isn't it weird to think soldiers in the war are blogging! Can you imagine if soldiers were able to blog during WWII, what information we could gain, what history would be recorded! It is amazing. Who's your Baghdaddy? And his photos.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Illustration Friday this week is Heroes - a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life.

The first person that comes to mind was Rosa Parks. I also have many personal heroes, my gentle grandfather, of Choctaw Indian descent, orphaned at 12, who went to work to support his brother and sister. My mother who has always been a tower of strength and has endured some horrible events, still retaining her humor and dignity. My Junior High English teacher, Mrs. Hunt, whom I loved, respected and she later died of a brain tumor. Most of my heros are women I have had, and have in my life - strong, loving, supportive, giving, endurable women. Flo, Faith, Irene, Ruth, Virginia, Lucy, to name a few that have touched my life in many ways.

Photoshop illustration, taking the orginal photo, making many layers, altering constrast, threshold, adding color, using the blur tool to soften pixel edges, redrawing her glasses in Illustrator, import and setting the Soft. Using different brushes to create border. I added the original photo where her glasses vanished. I copied PSD into Illustrator and just winged the shape and also another polygon with a white fill. Making both layers soft light blending, the glass part less opaque that rim.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Sometimes I am enchanted with movie opening credit graphics and it a nice start to a move. I never stick around for the closing credits but the other night I got sucked into the closing credits of Lemony Snicket and could not turn away until the screen went black. They were as good as the movie!There is a thread of messages here about the artist, Benjamin Goldman. And watch the credits here but be warned it is not for dail-up.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

When our son was completely into extreme skating, we invested in a skate park, thinking he would teach summer skate camps, work there during the summer, skate there for free, an investment in his sport he was so accomplished in for the future, in case this venture actually made money, it would be a fun investment for him, for his sport.Then after 5+ years of skating, he gave it up. We were stunned, disappointed doesn't even begin to explain our feelings. Now he has taken up Paintball as a sport. I call it an expensive hobby. I am not investing in any paintball arenas. I miss extreme skating, as weird as that sounds. We would drive several states, looking for new outdoor concrete skate parks, indoor skate parks. We drove 4 hours every weekend to Winthrop because they had a great indoor skate park with owner/skaters that would help the skaters. Now, I just feel like I am raising a 'sniper'. He is obsessed with paintballing, sits and reads paintballing magazines for hours. Studies paintballing videos. So, trying to be supportive (but not to the extreme of an investor), helped him design a logo for his T-shirts for his upcoming tournament (novice/13 and under). I am proud of him for taking on those challenges. But concerned about the aspect of him 'shooting something'. Well, maybe he can have a career in the FBI? Here he is with a Team Regime team member picking out logos for their T-shirts. (Reid, the other kid, Matt's best friend, and the cutest kid I have ever encountered). They all are paintballers. They love it. And they are challenged.

And I took it upon myself today to design my own version for Team Regime logo today (I do have a fetish about that little 'shape' this month).

I played Pixel Pusher the other night while the 'Team Regime' members were here designing their logo, having me change colors, move type, change the font. This is their favorite that they designed and will be on their tournament T-shirt.

I have been trying to get a little banner on my blog. Meggiecat helped me with the code. But I can not figure out how to get rid of the two rules. I am pretty sure this is a style sheet. I can take it off if I can't figure it out. But if you have the answer, you win a big prize. Thank you.

As hard as I try to think an illustration idea about black and white for Illustration Friday, the one thing that keeps coming to mind is doing illustrations IN black & white (and grey) when I worked at newspapers. Most illustrations we did were not color, only black and white, and the challenge was to keeping it interesting without color. Incorporating maps, charts, headlines in the illustration. It was fun. I dug these up and to tell you how old they are - Adobe Illustrator 3.0.

Monday, June 20, 2005

I am not sure why I have so many hydrangeas growing. I pruned them and thought I would have less blooms this year. I found myself punching letters in the leaves today. I am thinking 'cards', or a vehicle for invitations. The idea came to me when I blogged about Diana Lynn Thompson writing poetry on leaves.

Tara and I went searching for inspiration at Edmonds Art Festival yesterday. She cleared up one of my personal art collection mystery. I purchased these Milagro Doll Pins from Turtle Press many years ago but could not read the name of the artist on the tag. I have them hanging in my bathroom as art. Rice Freeman-Zachery, thank you, I love your pins.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Friday, June 17, 2005

(later)For those of you that dowloaded wallpapers, I think my original link was not to the largest image. I am just learning, so sorry! I have fixed it now.

I have wanted to do this for so long. And I am just experimenting with making wallpapers from one of my flower photos. Images are stored on Image Shack with other hi-res images you can download if you wish. Drag image to your desktop. If you try one let me how it works. Problems, suggestions? Let me know.(PS - I noticed when I downloaded it on my PC, the image seemed big, and bottom Littlesomethings...fell off.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

The Fursacci Spring 2005 Collection, fun site for dog apparel (found via lalaland). Did you catch Al Roker's Special Pet Nation on Dateline the other night? Makes me wonder if our good sense has gone to the dogs. The pets of NBC news. And check Animal Tracks this week (Down page slide show. Note: Not a always a good Mac experience, sorry!). Last but not least - Dogs hit catwalk, dog fashions.

Beautiful and elegant site belonging to Stephen Hallgren. I love that the user can change the font size. Nicely done.

StyleMod v2.0 allows you to update multiple styles and elements with one function call. It is very cool and I can't wait until I know what to do with it, how I can build it and use it. There are many, many places to learn Cascading Style Sheets and some day soon, I will learn exactyly how to use it.

My creative director, great dad, husband to the most beautiful wife, is the master of iMovie and iPhoto. A few years ago he created an iMovie for his parents' anniversary, with fades, old 8mm flickering, 'sweetheart' photos his parents, great music. It was perfect and I cried while watching it.

He has been knee-deep making cool memorabilia for Little League parents. Being a Little League parent of three boys, he is the designated media dad for his league. The league's website is fun, full of game reports submitted by different parents. He has a flickr acct for the teams, he can download pictures, have them up for viewing before the parents get the kids ready for bed. For QALL year 2005, he made an iPhoto book season memento. Understated elegance, perfect for parents to keep forever. He used iPhoto from iLife 5 and says it is really easy to make, each book under $20.00. For all you future Little Leaguer parents, keep this in mind. A great idea!

Sometimes we need a little perspective and looking to the sky and beyond can give you heavenly sight. Mind blowing images of the sun, Mars at its’ best, Hubble photos and mysterious Neptune. Hubblesite.org photo gallery. Europa and Mercury.

I am not sure I am glad I input my birthday into the Birthday Calculator because the description of me is not very complimentary! I ask myself if any of this relevant? But then I went on to find out what kind of element I was, so I guess I am curious.

Born on a Tuesday under the astrological sign Pisces. Your Life path number is 1.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2435545.5. The golden number for 1956 is 19. The epact number for 1956 is 17. The year 1956 was a leap year.

As of 6/10/2005 1:43:00 PM CDT You are 49 years old. You are 591 months old. You are 2,569 weeks old. You are 17,986 days old. You are 431,677 hours old. You are 25,900,663 minutes old. You are 1,554,039,780 seconds old.

Your birth tree is Lime Tree, the Doubt

Accepts what life dishes out in a composed way, hates fighting, stress and labour, tends to laziness and idleness, soft and relenting, makes sacrifices for friends, many talents but not tenacious enough to make them blossom, often wailing and complaining, very jealous, loyal.

Or you can find out what element you are. I was metal: Your power colors: white, gold, and silver. Your energy: contracting. Your season: fall. You are persistent (and maybe even a little bit stubborn). If you see something you want, you go for it.You have a lot of strength, and it's difficult to get you down. Very logical, you tend to analyze everything going on in your life.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

I noticed while dusting that we have many faces of little art things in our living room looking at us. I thought it would be funny to do a poster of all of them. I did not fit them all on the poster but here are most in a piece I am calling "are you looking at me?." From photos, posters, bobble heads, wooden sculptures, metal toys, paper mache dogs. Our house is a mixture of an art gallery and junk shop.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Illustration Friday is summer. Summer for me is gardening, enjoying my hydrangeas, getting wet under the sprinklers, sun-bathing in the privacy of my back yard, thinking about going on vacation somewhere (but never going), drinking frozen drinks, having friends over for for cook-outs, public swimming pools with the kids and catching a cool breeze under my tree. Summer does not last very long in the Northwest and it is wonderful.

I have been doodling art for a maternity story. This is one of my doodles, remembering back how big the boobs and nipples get, preparing to be a target. I don't think you can see the target at the end of them. This is what I looked like back then in my big pink maternity underwear.

My dad had a couple of kilts in the appropriate tartan he would wear to special events when we lived in Scotland. An old Texas cowboy in a kilt? He looked very handsome. I like this avant-garde kilt from V&A men in skirts. How to make a kilt.

I see men in these Utilikilts all the time in Seattle, and baby, they look good!

Thursday, June 09, 2005

I might have mentioned some of these artist before (or maybe you have), but I went on a nature walk today via my computer. How inspiring. Makes me want to gather some leaves,twigs and shells and make a pattern.

Sand dollars by Diana Lynn Thompson, Writing poetry on leaves and Gesture: Momentary installations made between the tides on the beaches of Vancouver, Victoria, and Saltspring Island

So simple, so beautiful. Noble-Fir-Crystals ( found in the Tomographics): Slices of dead Noble-Fir at Fawn-Lake, Mt.St.Helens, WA, by Urs-P. Twellman and much more natural beauty on his site. The image below is the property of www.twellmann.ch.

Monday, June 06, 2005

E-mails have replaced many events in our lives. I miss the anticipation of letters from foreign places mailed with exotic stamps to collect, something to read, something for your grandchildren to find in a trunk years later. Face to face visits with your best friend, holding hands, hugging, just looking at each other and remembering your past together. Long phone calls filled with snorting laughter. Yes, e-mails are convenient, instant. Not always the most satisfying or best method of communication.

But there is one thing that an e-mail should not replace and that is the 'personal touch' of breaking it off with someone you have been dating and intimate with for 6 months. Dear-John-email is the absolute no-no. So if anyone out there is considering this, please reconsider and do your relationship with someone the courtesy of a face-to-face break up. This happened to my most beautiful, smart, talented, hard-working, witty sister-in-law tonight. And frankly, I am still stunned at the shameful act of a 53-year-old successful business that from all I heard about him was ‘enlightened’. What kind of a cad would break up via e-mail? Am I just over reacting? Please advise.

(I guess I can just be thankful he didn't save himself some more time by cc-ing the previous girlfriend that he is getting 'back' with, tack on a cc to mutual friends so they know not to mention the 'unpleasantness'.)

It is a small art world. Tara and I meet yesterday at Third Place Books for coffee after we discovered via flickr, that we had more in comman than just art, we lived about 10 minutes from each other. Her Art Journals are incredible.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

My art director sent this to me, and I was a little concerned about posting because I don't know who to credit. But this is pricless and needs to be shared with the world. Nothing could be more spot on! I am searching out the author.

Some magazines cross over easily to a web presence. Martha Stewart Living was the best at sharing stuff from her magazine, very early in the internet age. They tackled it all, web, tv, print in one glorious, successful fashion. Not giving too much away from print, but supporting, and offering resources from print and tv. Conde Nast was terrible in the beginning, I would go there and basically see an ad. But they have come along way, Baby. Style.com, online Vogue and they are good resource now for fashion shows and News/Trends.

My mother loves Cooks Illustrated and they look like they have some resources on their site. Vanity Fair’s daily dose listings and other links, some content stuff. And of course, Epicurious, for shopping and recipes. And my favorite food related magazine - Saveur - has a good web presence. And then I have to mention Food Network, good for recipes and resources from the TV network shows. I tried a couple of recipes and was disappointed.

I have been pleasantly distracted by photos, macro photography and peonies lately. I love flickr groups that one can submit their work to. That being said, I do not consider myself a photographer just because I own a digital camera - more of an experimenter. There seems little is left that isn't documented by someone and their handy digital. I have been showing my mom the beauty of Flickr tags, she can search out photos of Scotland if she wishes a walk back in time. But how many photos do you think they have stored all ready?There are so many sites to view old photos, they are always my favorite. I know I have probably mentioned a few of these before, and you have too, but some things you just can not mention enough, agreed? Found Photos, based on file-sharing (here is a little blurb) is interesting but not dated photos. Just goofy stuff off of peoples digital cameras. Much older collections at Time Tales and some from Argentina at Foto Encontradas. A very touching here from Top Left Pixel of a man and his dog. More embracing photos at Round Here like this wonderful seashell meets sea. Geisha girl photos, beauty of traditional Japan found at Retrolounge, a jumping off point for lots of great visuals from the past (you must click twice on the links). Sacred lotus photographic documentary. And a flying chair with butterflies.Then there are these reminders of our shameful history in the form of mugshots of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.